Played Out
by Andraste1
Summary: In Ithilien after the quest, four hobbits attempt to recover.


This was originally written from a challenge on the LOTRImprov list on yahoogroups.  
  
  
Title: Played Out  
Author: Andraste  
Improv: #4 (dust - shake - lithe - rest)  
Rating: PG  
Type: Gen  
Characters: Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin  
Archive: Yes to the LOTR Improv archive: anyone else, please ask.  
Author's Notes: A bit dark, no happy ending  
  
  
---Pippin---  
  
The worst thing was to feel Merry shake with fear - Merry, who had always been so strong and sensible and calm.  
  
Pippin bore the marks of battle with pride, although he was weary of the band around his ribs that made it painful to breathe, the bruising that made his flesh tender, the aches and knifelike stabs that made it difficult to sleep at night. He was glad that he had slept while the worst of his injuries mended, because there were times even now when he thought he would break apart from the pain.   
  
The pain in his body was difficult, but he could bear it because he understood it; he knew the cause, knew that there were remedies. Knew that he would eventually be whole. He did grieve over Frodo's haunted face and lost finger, over the brown scar on Merry's forehead and the occasional stiffness in his cousin's sword arm, but they did not distress him as much as Merry's dreams. And he would never have known that Merry suffered so, if he had not happened to share a tent with him.  
  
It happened almost every night. He would awaken knowing that something was wrong, and would hold his breath for a moment until he heard more of the sounds that made him sure he was needed, and then he would leave his bed and quietly slip into Merry's. The noises varied, and he guessed that the evil dreams that produced them did too. At times Merry would be moaning quietly; or he would call Pippin's name, or Frodo's, or other words which Pippin did not hear because by the time he was awake, heart pounding, the words had slipped out of the tent and away into the night. Occasionally it was a scream which awakened him; the first few times Pippin needed to reassure others who had been disturbed that all was well, it was just a nightmare, but now it had happened enough that the others left them mostly alone, and in any case Merry's was not the only voice which haunted Ithilien at night.   
  
Sometimes Merry would be sobbing or whimpering, so softly that Pippin could scarcely hear it; these were the worst of all the nighttime awakenings, because Pippin never knew how long Merry had suffered alone before his soft sounds were loud enough to disturb Pippin's slumber.   
  
The only thing that did not vary about the nights was that when Pippin crawled into bed beside his cousin, Merry would be shaking. Merry, who had always been as solid and comforting as a tree-trunk, trembled in his sleep like a sapling in a high wind. Pippin had been terrified when he had first felt it. He was used to a Merry unaffected by the terrors of the night, a Merry who in years past would soothe a young cousin's nightmares by stroking his hair and holding him close, whispering jests and tales until Pippin fell asleep nestled in strong arms. This new Merry who trembled and cried out and woke with a face wet with tears was someone Pippin didn't know how to deal with, and it felt as if the earth had fallen away beneath his feet.  
  
All Pippin could do was to crawl into bed beside his cousin, burrowing down under the blankets and holding Merry close. Sometimes that would be enough; the trembling would gradually abate, the sounds of distress cease, and Merry would fall into an easier sleep without ever having woken. Sometimes Pippin would have to hold Merry's shoulders and softly call his name, trying to draw him back from whatever horror had him in its grip. Sometimes even that would not be enough and Pippin would have to roll on top of Merry, pressing him down into the bedding, wincing at his own painful bruises as he laid his hands on either side of Merry's head and spoke his name softly until at last Merry woke.  
  
The most sensible thing would be for Pippin to sleep in Merry's bed from the very beginning; he was waking up there most mornings anyway, so what difference would it make? Yet somehow he could not bring himself to suggest it. He clung to the fact that Merry had never yet woken him with a nightmare while Pippin slept beside him; but there was a whisper of dread in his mind that his presence would not be enough to prevent Merry's suffering, that he would lose his effectiveness if he were there when the nightmares started. That he would no longer be able to help Merry, even a little bit. And Merry himself would not ask; he never mentioned the nightmares, during waking or sleeping hours, except in those few startled moments after he woke from one. Once Pippin had woken him and said "You were moaning," and Merry had responded, dazed, "I was trying to scream". But most of the time there were no words between them, and once they woke in the morning, limbs tangled heavily together, it was as if the reason for Pippin being there had completely vanished.  
  
Pippin wondered whether the healers could prevent Merry's dreams, but he felt it would be a betrayal to ask them; so he held Merry close at night, wishing that the love in his bones and blood were enough to heal his cousin's troubled mind.  
  
  
---Sam---  
  
There was a place to rest, and yet no rest to be had, for Frodo was not content.  
  
It was in his eyes that Sam could see it. Frodo joined in meals and conversation with the same mannerisms he had always used, told jokes and smiled and listened, but his eyes were vague and his smiles automatic. He was the same, and yet not the same, and it was in his eyes that the difference showed. No longer pools of hope or deep pits of despair and pain, they were now as clear and undisturbed as still water; but they seemed to always be focused on a point somewhere behind Sam, as if Frodo was moving through the world unseeing. He was attentive now, touching Sam gently on the arm, smiling at him often, making sure that he was comfortable and had the best of everything; he hugged Merry and ruffled Pippin's curls with the same tenderness, but it was a tenderness from which something was missing.   
  
At first Sam tried to get him to enjoy their surroundings, the luxury of soft bedding, the taste of the food, the simple joy of being alive and together with those he loved; Frodo smiled, serene and endlessly accepting, but Sam could sense no joy in him, and it bruised his heart.   
  
After supper, but before the sun went down, Frodo would become restless. It took him when they sat talking after the meal, breezes smoothing silky over their skin, while Pippin described the encounter between Gandalf and Denethor, or Merry spoke with wonder of Treebeard, or Sam himself told of his chase through Cirith Ungol while Frodo lay prisoner and the Orcs killed one another in a frenzy. Sam would look up and see Frodo's pale face, his eyes drifting to the dark woods, his fingers tapping restlessly on the table with the missing one making the rhythm discordant; he could scarcely wait to be gone and Sam knew that he was not invited.   
  
He would watch Frodo's back disappear among the trees, hoping that the drooping of shoulders he saw was just a trick of the dying light. Frodo's head would be bowed, the trees slicing him with shadow, and a moment later the woods would swallow him completely. The moon had drained the colour from the trees and would be painting the landscape unearthly white before Frodo would reappear, heavy-eyed and subdued, as close to content as Sam ever saw him now. The evening walks were the only occasions upon which Sam felt any kind of spirit in Frodo; during the daytime and at night he let the pace and direction for the day be set by others. Sam longed for something to startle Frodo out of his passivity, but even Merry's night terrors and Pippin's wordless gasps of pain seemed to evoke nothing more than a remote kindness in him, like a farmer tending to injured sheep; what else could wake Frodo from this numb gentleness, if love and pain were both powerless?  
  
At night they lay in clean pavilions, beneath a sky so high and clear that they could have slept outside and never been touched by dew. Frodo slept heavily, his head turned away from Sam, his breathing so soft that Sam would creep close to be sure he could hear it, close enough that Frodo's breath feathered over his skin. So soft and slow, another thing making Sam feel as if Frodo wasn't really there at all.  
  
In the daytime, it was worse. The sunlight carved hollows under Frodo's eyes and threw the unnatural thinness of his face into prominence; the skin of his face was taut, almost translucent, the colour washed out. As if his life were ebbing away, leaking out into the earth which he had made safe. Sam would watch him holding his thin hands before him in the sunlight, turning them this way and that as if he was not sure that they belonged to him. As if he could not believe he was there, in his flesh, in the warmth of the sun with the love of his companions around him. As if he were scarcely there at all. As if he were a ghost walking in Frodo's guise, and the real Frodo had slipped away through the trees soft as a sigh, leaving Sam with naught but an empty shell with Frodo's smile and touch and voice.  
  
Sam felt a fierce hot protectiveness as he listened to Frodo's quiet breathing, crouched alone in the dark beside his master, friend, saviour. Hot protectiveness, and cold despair.   
  
The harvest could stroke the fields of the Shire with colour, the scent of roses infuse the air with velvet and the sun could warm the earth until it pulsed beneath Sam's hands as he coaxed it into growth and green; but what would that mean if Frodo could not share it?   
  
He crouched in the starless dark, wishing for Frodo to cry out or moan or shed tears, and hating himself for it.  
  
  
---Merry---  
  
To see Pippin, normally lithe as a cat, stiff and pale with pain was almost more than he could bear.  
  
As a child Pippin had been impulsive and joyously physical, loving to chase and climb, able to wriggle unexpectedly out of an older sister's confining arms like a little eel. He was always in motion, feelings passing swiftly over his mobile face, quick to laugh or weep, with nimble fingers and strong arms; he was quick to bestow hugs and kisses and caresses, carelessly sprinkled among those he loved. As a grown hobbit he moved with a swift unconscious grace which made Merry's breath catch in his throat at times.  
  
When Pippin had been brought in to the City, bruised and bloodied and barely alive, Merry's insides felt as though they had sunk through the floor and through the ground and deep into the earth, a cold claw gripping his heart, his legs turning so weak that he had clutched blindly for support; a thundering sounded in his ears and a black mist descended over his eyes. He could scarcely form words, could barely breathe, there was nothing in his mind except _not Pippin, not Pippin, no no nonononono_   
  
He was never sure whether he had just thought the words or cried them aloud. And then Pippin had moaned and Merry had awoken from his cold grief, only to find it replaced with a terrible sinking fear which slid into his heart like a splinter and stayed there.   
  
Because it hurt to see Pippin so still and silent, oh, it hurt. There had been many days during which Pippin lay in the healing sleep, unable to feel the pain from his injuries. Merry had been assured that he would recover, and believed it; he had sat every day in between Pippin's bed and Frodo's, waiting, holding Pippin's hand (the one with the unbroken fingers) and trying not to think. Trying not to think about anything, trying to will Pippin better with everything in his mind and heart and soul, trying to pour his love and his hope for healing out through his fingertips and into the pores of Pippin's skin.   
  
Then there had been the days when Pippin was awake but still abed, not permitted to get up. In childhood, or even a year ago, a stay in bed would have seen Pippin restless and protesting eagerly that he could walk, that he was perfectly well, that he didn't *need* to stay in bed and would get better much more quickly if he sat outside in the sun. Instead, Merry was faced with a pale and silent Pippin, whose smiles were as brilliant as ever but whose eyes were sheeted with pain, whose steady stream of bright speech and laughter had dwindled to a trickle because it hurt his  
broken ribs to draw deep breaths.   
  
Now out of bed, Pippin moved slowly and uncertainly, hesitant and careful where once he was swift and agile. There were bruises on his face and body, abrasions where the troll's bulk had pressed him into the ground, and the unseen injuries which turned him white and gasping when he moved the wrong way. Merry stayed beside him, or a few steps behind, hiding the sick feeling which squeezed his insides every time he caught Pippin in pain; he learned to watch for the times when Pippin's lip was bloody because he had bitten it to keep from crying aloud.  
  
Merry began dreaming every night, evil dreams. Sometimes they flung him back into events which had already occurred, and he found himself holding Frodo's cold hand as the Morgul-blade smoked away in Strider's grasp, or standing on the Pelennor Fields. Most dreams, though, were about Pippin: Pippin injured and bleeding, trying to drag himself from the great black-cloaked riders bearing down upon him; Pippin trapped in a pit, taunted by orcs prodding him with spears and jeering; Pippin sliding over the edge of a precipice, bloodied hands scrabbling for purchase, face anguished, screaming to Merry for help as he lost his grip on the rough stone and plummeted from Merry's sight. In every dream Merry was just too far away, just too late, just too slow to save him.   
  
The dreams disturbed his sleep, and he knew they disturbed Pippin's also; sometimes he would wake enfolded in warmth and tenderness as Pippin, heedless of his own injuries, held him tightly and hummed or crooned or murmured loving nonsense until Merry fell asleep again. At other times they would wake wrapped around one another in the morning. Merry was ashamed and distressed; he wanted desperately to ask Pippin to sleep with him from the beginning of every night, but he worried that he would hurt Pippin, was already hurting him, rolling on top of him during the night, holding him too tightly, or crushing his bruised and broken limbs. And while he was sure that he could sleep undisturbed with Pippin wrapped in his arms, that the knowledge of his cousin's safety would sink into his dreams and sweeten them, he would not let himself speak about it. If it hurt Pippin just to breathe, it would surely be even more painful to be jostled by Merry's restless sleep; and Merry did not want to burden his cousin with the knowledge that his distress was the cause of Merry's painful dreams.  
  
Every night, before the darkness closed over his head, he fortified himself with the sight of Pippin's face and form, a tender ritual, wondering if one day Pippin would be whole enough for both of them to sleep in peace.  
  
  
---Frodo---  
  
He was dust inside. Dry and cold, drifting, weighing almost nothing, and scarcely able to feel.  
  
There was every opportunity to experience and enjoy everything he had once loved. There was good food, as much as he could eat, and no need to hoard or to choke it down dry. They were in a sweet safe place that smelt of herbs and sun-warmed earth and fresh growing things, and there were streams to bathe in and soft towels, and even soap, but he could never be clean, because the dust was inside him. The smell was in his hair still, the dust on his skin, his own clotted blood in his fingernails; and he could not remove any of them, for they were all there was left of him now.   
  
For how could he be happy, when he had failed? How could he take pleasure in a world which he had not been able to save, which he had actively fought against saving, at the end?  
  
He kept it from the others as best he could. By day they sat on grass as soft as velvet, talking or laughing or weeping, and there was time to do all those things as well as time to merely lie back and close his eyes under the gentle caress of the sun. Once Frodo had loved to stretch out on the grass on a summer day, one arm over his eyes, floating gently through the haze of warmth and light. He would hear Merry's gentle murmur and Pippin's scattered laughter and would let them flow over and around him, waiting for a particular sound; the slight huff Sam would give as he dropped to his knees on the grass beside Frodo, sleeves rolled up and skin slightly damp from the heat.   
  
The sunlight still fell over him, and he could see that it was the same sun; it threw Pippin's face into angular shadow and reddened Merry's cheeks, but it had no power to warm Frodo's flesh or bring colour to his face. He held his hands before him, and could see the light on them, and he knew his skin was warm, but he could not feel the pleasure any more. He did not tell them that he was afraid that the sunlight would expose him, shining through his frail outer shell to reveal him hollow, old, empty within. Like a plump pie with nothing inside the crust when you sliced it; like an apple with rot beneath its healthy skin.   
  
Evenings in Ithilien were exquisite; the air was like honey, warm and smooth and rich-scented, and the colours when the sun set were so vivid that Frodo knew they would once have made his breath catch at the sight, but now he watched them without joy. He exclaimed over their beauty, he observed it, but he did not feel. He took to walking alone every evening, when the others sat drowsy and sated with good food and drink; he would walk and walk in the darkness of the woods, letting himself be filled with the stillness of the trees, the hardness of the earth under his feet, the cool of the evening. Walking gave him a solidity and stability; when he returned, to find the others talking softly under the huge glassy globe of the moon, he no longer felt as if he would flake into dry dust before their eyes. Heavy with weariness and with the ache in his legs, he could pretend to be a real hobbit again.  
  
He worried that he would not be able to keep the pretence up before the others, although the Men and Elves and Dwarves were easy because their experience of hobbits was limited, and he did not spend as much time with them. Merry and Pippin were more difficult. He knew that they were concerned for him, that his pretence was not perfect; he could see in their faces that they knew something was wrong, but he smoothly ignored their concern, and it became easier and easier. They had their own battles to fight, and he watched their struggles with a remote detached love which seemed to come from somewhere outside himself, as if his beloved cousins were characters in a story.  
  
Sam was what joined him to the world now - Sam, with his protective glances and caring hands and slow wistful smiles all hooked into Frodo's soul and weighing him to the earth. He could feel Sam's eyes following him, hungry for Frodo's happiness; Sam wanted him to enjoy the peace he had brought about, to take rest and food and be blessed with the company of his friends. Sam was wisdom itself in his simplicity, but Frodo knew that this state of emptiness was something Sam could never understand. Sam longed to give his master every comfort, fought fiercely to make  
Frodo accept the honour bestowed upon him, and Frodo could not deny him these pleasures; but nor could he be at ease.  
  
_I am no hero. The Ring has carved me hollow, and dried up everything that was good in me, and made me fight against what I knew was right. If love and life and joy are to grow in me again, then that goodness must be renewed. And I do not think it can be done._  
  
  
  
***END*** 


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